A data scientist cracks the code to landing on the New York Times Best Seller list - MarketWatch

The average American reads 12 or 13 books a year, but with over 3 million books in print, the choices they face are staggering.

Despite the introduction of 100,000 new titles each year, only a tiny fraction of these attract a large enough readership to make The New York Times Best Seller list.

Which raises the questions: How does a book become a best-seller, and which types of books are more likely to make the list?

Extract

Then we examined the fiction list. Much of the press focuses on literary fiction - books we see debated by critics, lauded as important and culturally relevant, and eventually taught in schools.

But in the past decade, only 800 books categorized as literary fiction made the best-seller list. Most best sellers - 67% of all fiction titles - represent plot-driven genres like mystery or romance or the kind of thrillers that Danielle Steel and Clive Cussler write.Action sells -- there's no surprise there.

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'In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent business man.'